Friday, December 25, 2015

Towards the ends of Dragon Quest III and VI, you encounter a small, sealed off realm. Here resides a population of people kept in perpetual misery, suffering, and depression, which the Archfiends of these games love to feast on (somehow). Through pluck, guile, and a little demon slaying, you rescue these people from their circumstances, overcoming the bitterness consuming their lives. Nice little parables for sure, especially for a series steeped in altruism. So when Dragon Quest made its leap to the Playstation, it took those singular events and spread it for the course of an entire game. Each sealed realm you visit and free restores the world from a single, isolated island like a giant jigsaw puzzle. No, literally! You go around collecting shards, piecing them together, and- Well, no sense revealing everything. I’ll just end with the knowledge this is one long RPG, and one of the bonus bosses is God. Yes, the God, with the flowing white beard, robe, etc.

Ooh, I said ‘end’ in the last paragraph. That can segue into this review, as we’re also at the ‘end’ of this seven disc box set, which features music played at the ‘end’ of the game, specifically during ‘end’ credits. Also, I’ll now ‘end’ these forced quotations.

So you defeated the big bad of the realm, rescued a princess or two, became a legendary hero in the process of fulfilling prophecy. Now you can get back to rebuilding your sacked village, raising a family, and take up the family fishing business. It a funny turn how the triumphant victories of the older Dragon Quest games became more humbling and simple in later editions. Hell, some conclusions come bitter-sweet, no more so than Dragon Quest IV where defeating the villain was an act of necessity brought about by manipulation and betrayal. Have I mentioned how frickin’ awesome that game’s plot is for the 8-bit era? Man, even the Ending (IV) music is ridiculously epic, especially in its fully orchestrated version here. Movies don’t get end credit scores this grand.

That essentially concludes the symphonic suite portion of the box set, but what’s this? Extra room on CD7? Sure, a little of that was taken by the ‘heaven’ compositions at start (Dragon Quest IV through VI centers on a ‘Heaven’ arc, or Zenithia in the original translation), but that still leaves plenty space at the end. Yet there are no more recordings of symphonic suites. What can be used to fill out that gap? Why, original VGM of course!

Two pieces from Dragon Quest VII never got a symphonic upgrade, gypsy folk ditties titled Toura Dance (VII) and Restoration Prayer (VII). Not sure why that is, though I’ve heard rumor ol’ Koichi had difficulty composing them with an orchestral backing. Wait, this from the guy that made symphonic chiptunes? A few more pieces were added to the 32-bit upgrade for Dragon Quest IV, including new mid-boss battle music and a theme for the main antagonists. They’re, um… disappointing.